The Magellan Rail Car Dining Room (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Ron H, who writes:
[Check out] the following link to a story about the communications car that was part of the Presidential train. [This] was originally posted on the Hammarlund listserve:
Click to access the_presidential_communications_railroad_car_crate.pdf
Thanks so much for the tip, Ron!
Because I keep my ear to the waves, as well as receive many tips from others who do the same, I find myself privy to radio-related stories that might interest SWLing Post readers. To that end: Welcome to the SWLing Post’s Radio Waves, a collection of links to interesting stories making waves in the world of radio. Enjoy!
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributors Paul, Dennis Dura, and David Goren for the following tips:
How I used a Stream Deck Mini from Elgato in order to give my mother-in-law a super easy Internet radio experience.
By Bjørn Erling Fløtten, Trondheim, Norway. April 2021.
See also comments on Hacker News
My mother-in-law is from Poland. When she stays in Norway in order to help us with babysitting she misses Polish radio. In principle this is easily accessible through the Internet now from all kind of devices.
BUT, my mother-in-law is not PC-literate, nor does she use a so called ‘smart’-phone. With my long experience in teaching people far younger than her simple mouse and keyboard techniques, I knew that operating Windows and finding Internet radio stations on her own would just be too cumbersome. I therefore had to create a super simple setup for her, and my hacker mind started to think.
(I did of course consider special purpose Internet radios. They should in theory be quite simple to operate, but they all have som kind of quirks that I did not like. And besides, constructing something of your own is of course always more satisfying.)
What I really wanted was big buttons with tactile feedback. I had earlier experienced with some Behringer products (sound mixing board) in order to demonstrate mathematical functions. The idea then was to use turning knobs and sliders in order to see how changing parameters changed the outcome of the function, especially graphs in 2D and 3D.
I thought this would be useful also for an Internet radio, but then I remembered having read about the Optimus Maximus keyboard (keyboard with programmable led icons on each key), and I thought such a product would be even better. This search led to Elgato and their Stream Deck Mini. This has 6 buttons, just enough for a radio. I might have preferred the bigger version with 15 buttons but their products are ridiculously expensive, so I had to be content with just 6 buttons.
In addition to the Stream Deck Mini my son donated his old school laptop with Windows 10 installed. It was a cheap ThinkPad L-series which, although 3 years old and somewhat battered from daily use to and from school, was quite capable of streaming some audio from the Internet. My son created a guest account in Windows 10 with auto login. He set ‘Fn lock’ as default, meaning that keys F1, F2 and F3 was volume off, down, up without having to press Fn. We also found a pair of speakers lying around in the house.
(* But understanding of HTML, URLs and Windows command line arguments is a requisite.)
Initially I thought I would make a Windows application for controlling which radio streams to play. But it turned out that Elgato’s accompanying software was quite capable by itself.
I assigned five of the six available buttons to launch the standard web browser (Google Chrome in this case) with a corresponding streaming URL (radio channel).
Continue reading the full article by clicking here.
The US Department of Defense will host this year’s Armed Forces Day (AFD) Cross-Band Test, Friday and Saturday, May 7 – 8, in recognition of Armed Forces Day on May 15. The event is open to all radio amateurs.
For more than 50 years, military and amateur stations have taken part in this exercise, designed to include amateur radio and government radio operators alike.
The AFD Cross-Band Test is a unique opportunity to test two-way communications between military and amateur radio stations, as authorized under FCC Part 97 rules. These tests provide opportunities and challenges for radio operators to demonstrate individual technical skills in a tightly controlled exercise in which military stations will transmit on selected military frequencies and will announce the specific amateur radio frequencies being monitored.
The schedule of military/government stations taking part in the Armed Forces Day Cross-Band Test and information on the AFD message is available on the MARS website.
Complete the request form to obtain a QSL card. ARRL
The RAC Challenge Award: An Overview
Radio Amateurs of Canada is pleased to present a new Canadian Portable Operations Challenge Award for RAC members.
The objective of the new “RAC Challenge Award” is to recognize and encourage portable operations by RAC members from locations throughout Canada.
The new program will begin on Canada Day, July 1, 2021 and we hope it will become an annual event for RAC members.
Note: the following information is tentative as the new Awards program is still being organized so please stay tuned to this webpage for future updates.
Portable Operations
Portable operations are those in which Amateurs take their equipment, antennas and power supply to a location away from their home station to operate. This includes mobile stations, backpackers, DXpeditions and participation in events such as those described below:
Parks On The Air (POTA), a worldwide program of park activations – https://parksontheair.com/
Quebec Parks On The Air (QcPOTA) April 1 to December 31
Field Day: June 26-27
There are several other programs that celebrate portable operations including Summits on the Air (SOTA), Islands on the Air (IOTA) and the International Lighthouses and Lightships Weekend.
Features of the “RAC Challenge”
The new “RAC Challenge” will recognize all portable operations in which RAC members participate and will have similar features as a contest. Amateur Radio contests in VHF, UHF and the Microwave bands all have categories for “Rovers” – who move from grid square to grid square and “Backpackers” – who seek out hilltops from which to operate with highly portable equipment and antennas.
For many satellite operators, making contact with as many grid squares as possible is a mark of success. Some of those operators go on satellite DXpeditions to activate rare grids or operate from the intersections of grids to offer multiple grids with a single contact. In addition to being fun, these activities provide an opportunity for Amateurs to experience what is required to set up and operate under challenging conditions – valuable experience for emergency preparedness.
For more on the RAC Challenge Award, please see:
https://www.rac.ca/rac-canadian-portable-operations-challenge-award/
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Because I keep my ear to the waves, as well as receive many tips from others who do the same, I find myself privy to radio-related stories that might interest SWLing Post readers. To that end: Welcome to the SWLing Post’s Radio Waves, a collection of links to interesting stories making waves in the world of radio. Enjoy!
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributors Paul L, Pete Eaton, David Iurescia, and Troy Riedel for the following tips:
The PIRATE Act was signed into law more than a year ago, but the rules governing increased fines for unlicensed broadcasting are about to go into effect on April 26. The Act is intended to give the FCC additional tools for tamping down pirate radio activity in hot beds like Boston and Brooklyn, NY, but there are reasons to be skeptical.
Brooklyn-based writer, post-production mixer and field recordist David Goren joins to help us tease out the real-world implications. Goren is also the creator of the Brooklyn Pirate Radio Sound Map and has been monitoring and recording unlicensed radio activity in the borough for decades.
Also joining the show is Dr. Christopher Terry from the University of Minnesota. A professor of media law, he helps illuminate some of the legal and bureaucratic elements that complicate the Commission’s efforts. He also catches us up on the latest development in the battle over media ownership rules, with the Supreme Court issuing a narrow unanimous ruling in favor of the FCC’s most recent changes, but not quite addressing the decades-long gridlock in that policy area.
Click here to visit Radio Survivor.
The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 after an unexplained course change sent it flying south over the Indian Ocean in March 2014 still holds the mystery of the wreck’s final location. There have been a variety of efforts to narrow down a possible search area over the years, and now we have news of a further angle from an unexpected source. It’s possible that the aircraft’s path could show up in radio scatter detectable as anomalously long-distance contacts using the amateur radio WSPR protocol.
WSPR is a low-power amateur radio mode designed to probe and record the radio propagation capabilities of the atmosphere. Transmit beacons and receiving stations run continuously, and all contacts however fleeting are recorded to an online database. This can be mined by researchers with an interest in the atmosphere, but in this case it might also provide clues to the missing airliner’s flightpath. By searching for anomalously long-distance WSPR contacts whose path crosses the expected position of MH370 it’s possible to spot moments when the aircraft formed a reflector for the radio waves.[…]
Click here to read the full article at Hackaday.
His provocative “Radio Unnameable,” long a staple of the New York station WBAI, offered a home on the FM dial to everyone from Abbie Hoffman to Tiny Tim.
Bob Fass, who for more than 50 years hosted an anarchic and influential radio show on New York’s countercultural FM station WBAI that mixed political conversation, avant-garde music, serendipitous encounters and outright agitation, died on Saturday in Monroe, N.C., where he lived in recent years. He was 87.
His wife, Lynnie Tofte, said he had been hospitalized with Covid 19 earlier in the month, but he died of congestive heart failure.
Continue reading at the NY Times.
The Dicastery for Communication marks the 30th International Marconi Day with a celebration at Vatican Radio’s historic broadcast station outside Rome.
International Marconi Day is held every year on the Saturday closest to the birthday of the inventor of the radio, Guglielmo Marconi, on 25 April 1874.
This year’s commemoration fell a day earlier, and saw dozens of radio stations exchange messages, including Vatican Radio, which Marconi himself helped found in 1931.
The 30th iteration of Marconi Day was celebrated at Vatican Radio’s broadcast center at Santa Maria di Galeria, outside Rome.
Day for those who love radio
According to Dr. Paolo Ruffini, the Prefect of the Dicastery for Communication, it was “a day spent in a family spirit” for those who love the Radio and the man who invented it.
He noted that the broadcast station forms both the center and periphery of Vatican Radio, since it is the place where radio waves are emitted which carry the Gospel and the words of the Popes throughout the world.
Marconi’s favorite Radio
The 30th Marconi Day falls within the 90th anniversary year of the founding of Vatican Radio.
The great Italian inventor’s daughter, Princess Elettra Marconi, who was present for the celebration, recalled that the station was her father’s favorite, though he had founded several others.[…]
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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Ferruccio Manfieri (IZ1096SWL), who shares this report and excellent photo tour from a visit to the Museo Marconi in Bologna, Italy in 2018.
Today is International Marconi Day, so this is a very welcome, and timely post:
by Ferruccio Manfieri (IZ1096SWL)
Bologna, in Northern Italy, is renowned to be the seat of the oldest University in Europe and in the world (the Alma Mater Studiorum) and its historic, artistic and culinary heritage. From a scientific perspective, Bologna is the birthplace of Guglielmo Marconi as well as the place of his first experiments in transmission.
The inventor, born in Bologna on April 25th, 1874, was the son of an Italian father (Giuseppe, a wealthy landowner) and an Irish mother (Annie Jameson, of Jameson’s Whiskey family). At the age of 20, Marconi began to conduct experiments in radio waves, building much of his own equipment in the attic of his home at the Villa Griffone in Pontecchio (in the Bolognese countryside).
Marconi received his final resting place in Villa Griffone Mausoleum, an enterred crypt hosting his porphyr sarcophagus. The building was donated to the Guglielmo Marconi Foundation in 1941 after the death of the inventor (on the 20th of July 1937).
Sadly, Villa Griffone and the Mausoleum suffered heavy damages from WWII bombings and pillages and were patiently rebuilt in post-war years. Today, Villa Griffone is reborn as a hub of research and divulgation activities, hosting Guglielmo Marconi Foundation, the Marconi Museum, a library and two research groups on communication systems.
On the 26th of april 2019 I visited with my family the Museum hosted in the original building (a short trip from Bologna, 20 minutes by public transport)
Villa Griffone and the Marconi Mausoleum
The visit began with a nice stroll in the Villa gardens, home with the nearby hill of the Celestini of the first long-range and not in line of sight transmission experiment in 1895. Marconi managed to send signals over a distance of 2 km, beyond a hill situated between the transmission equipment (to which he had added a grounded vertical antenna) and the reception apparatus (characterised by an extremely sensitive coherer).
Villa Griffone gardens and “Hill of Celestini”
We were in the very spot Marconi was when he transmitted his three signals to the receiver operated by his brother and the gardener behind the hill. Nearby, the replica of eight meter wooden pole with the attached metal boxes used as antenna.
Marconi’s first “long range” antenna – replica
This experiment in universally aknowledged as the birth of radio transmission (and, by the way, the rifle shot used as a confirmation of the reception was the very first QSL…).
Our valent host and guide to the visit was the Director of the Museum, Barbara Valotti, who thoroughly described us (with knowledge, passion and communication skills) the historical framework of Marconi’s biography and works. A more engineering oriented and hands-on visit to the working replicas laboratory was subsequently hosted with passion and knowledge by Adriano Neri I4YCE.
In the Auditorium Dr. Valotti showed us two videos on the first transmission experiment and on the Republic incident in 1909, on of the first application of Marconi radiotelegraphy in an incident at sea, whose success (no lives were lost in the aftermath of the collision thanks to the coordination of rescue efforts via radiotelegraphy) gave a boost of popularity to radiotelegraphy and to the engineer, eventually leading to the Nobel prize in physics later that year.
A frame of the “Republic” video
This part of the visit emphasized his interest in real technological applications of his inventions and their commercial potential. Marconi was a “modern” mix of engineer (with an unhortodox, non-academic formation) and entrepreneur, ready to see the new potential applications of technologies in the society. Interestingly, Dr. Valotti underlined that the main focus of Marconi research was always the point-to-point trasmission and not the broadcast.
Hanging on the ceiling of the auditorium, a replica of the kite used by Marconi to lift an emergency antenna in the first transoceanic transmission from Poldhu to St Johns Newfoundland in 1901.
Yacht “Elettra” – memorabilias
The visit continued to the “silkworm room”, the original room (once used to breed silkworms) where Marconi held his laboratory and performed his experiments. The room was full of instruments replicas to show the laboratory as in the young Marconi years.
“Silkworm room” – Marconi’s first laboratory (original place, instrument replicas)
“Silkworm room” – Marconi’s desk (replica)
It was also possible to replicate the main experiments with educational working replicas.
Marconi transmitter – educational replica
Headphone and coherer used in the first transoceanic transmission (replicas)
The second phase of the visit was a more engineering-oriented explanation of the principles of radio telegraphy conducted by Adriano Neri I4YCE in a didactic laboratory on working replicas of the main epoch instruments.
Experiment table with working replicas: coherers, a wire decoder, a Marconi receiver
Instruments in the educational laboratory
With passion and competence, Mr. Neri explained us in a simple way (there were some very interested young people in the group) the cable telegraphy principles and the sequence of experiments and discoveries that led Marconi to his inventions.
In a detailed and fascinating exposition we saw applications of a Morse writer, the induction coil, the coherer and the first Marconi spark transmitter, all assembled in the end to transmit in the room some morse signals in the air.
Live demonstration of signal transmission by Adriano Neri . Against the wall a Marconi spark transmitter (note the antenna and ground plates), on the table: a Marconi receiver (with a coherer) connected with a Morse writer.
The laboratory, as the whole museum, hosts a huge number of working replicas (a wonderful collection in itself, handmade by Maurizio Bigazzi with rigorous standards of adherence to the original designs and, if possible, reuse of original parts) and some original equipment.
Ship wireless telegraph room – working replica
A last section of the museum is devoted to radio communication during the war (showing a WWI airplane-ground communication system) and radio broadcasting, with original sets of great interest like a 1923 Marconiphone (still working, we had a live demonstration receiving RAI programs) and a Ducati radio (the same Ducati company of motorbikes, based in Bologna).
WWI plane radio and ground receiver
1923 Marconiphone, working original set
Ducati radio
We spent all the morning in the Museum with great fun and interest from all the family.
I highly recommend a visit to the Museum for the place, its significance in the history of radio transmission and the competent and passionate exposition of the historical and technical themes related to Guglielmo Marconi.
A wealth of information (also in english) can be found of the Guglielmo Marconi Foundation website (www.fgm.it).
A detailed gallery of the Museum can also be found on the new Museum website (www.museomarconi.it)
Because I keep my ear to the waves, as well as receive many tips from others who do the same, I find myself privy to radio-related stories that might interest SWLing Post readers. To that end: Welcome to the SWLing Post’s Radio Waves, a collection of links to interesting stories making waves in the world of radio. Enjoy!
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributors Ulis (K3LU), Chris Walter, and Ron James for the following tips:
SpaceX doesn’t operate like a traditional aerospace company. For one, the CEO is usually hamming it up on Twitter during launches and providing details that would usually go in a press release. SpaceX also live streams almost all of its launches, even the prototypes that have an unfortunate tendency to blow up lately. It wasn’t even encrypting the Falcon 9 telemetry feed… until now. Unfortunately, some digging by amateur radio tinkerers seems to have convinced SpaceX to step up its security.
It all started a few weeks ago when several Redditors managed to lock onto the 2232.5 MHz telemetry downlink from a Falcon 9 upper stage. Right away, they were able to pull out a few interesting plaintext snippets from the unencrypted feed. With a little more work, the radio enthusiasts were able to capture some amazing images from the spacecraft’s cameras.
After that discovery was public, other SpaceX fans tried to grab some data from the Starship during its prototype tests. However, SpaceX had chosen to encrypt that data. Even with the right wireless equipment, the decoded signal was just noise. Now, it appears the same thing is happening with the Falcon 9. When attempting to pull data from the most recent Falcon 9 launch, the original signal snoopers discovered it had also been encrypted. A series of tweets from SpaceX engineers suggest the decoding of the telemetry signal was the reason for the change.[…]
BOSTON — A postcard written by the Titanic’s senior radio operator just weeks before the ocean liner sank in the North Atlantic in 1912 has been put up for auction.
The card, with a glossy image of the ill-fated ship on the front, was written by Jack Phillips to his sister, Elsie Phillips, in March 1912 while awaiting the ship’s first sea trials, according to RR Auction in Boston.
“Very busy working late. Hope to leave on Monday & arrive Soton Wednesday afternoon. Hope you quite OK. Heard from Ethel yesterday,” he wrote. It’s signed “Love Jack.”
It is postmarked Belfast, where the Titanic was built, and has a canceled halfpenny stamp.
“Soton” is a contraction of Southampton, the English port city from where the Titanic departed on its maiden voyage. It sank in the early morning hours of April 15.
Phillips, who turned 25 on board, stayed at his post after the Titanic struck an iceberg to send calls for assistance to other ships in the area until water was lapping around his feet, according to RR Auction.
He made it off the ship after being told by the captain that he had done his duty, according to his biography in the British National Archives, but died of exposure in the frigid North Atlantic, according to RR Auction.
The postcard is being sold by the estate of Vera and John Gillespie, longtime members of the Massachusetts-based Titanic Historical Society, said Bobby Livingston, executive vice president at RR Auction.[…]
What is sound art? And what do we know about its origin story? We explore this question and more with our guest this week, artist and educator Judy Dunaway. An adjunct professor in the History of Art Department at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Dunaway’s recent article, “The Forgotten 1979 MoMA Sound Art Exhibition,” is a fascinating look at the history of sound art and highlights important contributions by female artists. In our wide-ranging discussion, we also hear about Dunaway’s own artistic practice, from her work with latex balloons to transmission art to a “phone improv” show over BlogTalkRadio a decade ago.
Click here to check out this piece at Radio Survivor.
A MATTER OF RECORD: Mighty useful gadgets are WNYC’s four new recording machines. They were used in a variety of interesting ways during the past year, so we decided that the how and the why of recording would be an appropriate subject for this, the third of our Behind the Microphone series dealing with the technical side of things at the Municipal Station.
One of the most valuable uses of the recording units is that they have partially enabled us to overcome the limitations of time — have made it possible to make available to our listeners important evening programs which we could not broadcast directly because of our fluctuating time allotment.
For instance, we could not pick up the ASCAP Music Festival Concerts from Carnegie Hall last Fall because WNYC was not on the air after 8:30 P. M.[1] What to do? The recorders to the rescue! The concerts were “broadcast” over our regular Carnegie Hall lines to the Municipal Building where they were transcribed on our two standard studio-type recording machines. Each transcription[2] was put on the air on the afternoon following the original perfor
Similarly, our two mobile recording units made possible an afternoon broadcast of the official opening of La Guardia Field which took place at midnight. Recording equipment is also used frequently to transcribe major programs “off the air” so that they may reach a larger audience through rebroadcast. There was the time, for example, when the Mayor’s office was the scene of a final report on the new Police and Fireman’s pension plan. Official reports on the balloting were recorded and rebroadcast at a time when the majority of the policemen and firemen affected could listen in.
We used to think recording an easy job: Just put the recording needle on the disk, turn a few buttons, and let ‘er go. After watching one of our expert recording engineers at work, we realized that it’s a delicate task, requiring special training and long practice.
Click here to read the full piece at WNYC.
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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dave Porter (G4OYX), who writes:
Thought you might like to post this pic (above) just in from Phil Brooks who used to be an engineer at Woofferton.
In front of the operator on the desk is what was described as “The External Services Operational Schedule”.
The WOF version was chopped into three eight hour periods. Where there is print the senders are ON. There are eight vertical columns and they correspond to Sender 91 to Sender 96. There are two blank columns on the RHS corresponding to Sender 85 and Sender 86 that were available but not scheduled.
Assuming that they chopped the schedule from midnight to 0800, 0800 to 1600 and 1600 to midnight then it appears that VoA services start up at 0100 and run through to 0630.
Similarly for end of night shift there is BBC starting at 0730 to cover for the maintenance break at Daventry and off at 0900. VoA resumes at 1300 and carries on until 2330 throughout day and evening shift.
WOF has a maintenance break 0900 to 1300.
The six “white flags”are the “Crater keys” and are an interlock device such that if the key is removed then the sender associated with it can’t be powered so that antenna switching can take place.
The view from the window shows part of Sender 92 in the actual sender hall.
The six Peak Programme Meters PPM (UK version of VU – but much better) show the audio on the sender output or input if selected.
This desk ran from 1963 to 1981. It was replaced when automation with a Control System (the WATCH) was installed. That ran from 1981 to 2008.
Thanks so much for sharing this, Dave. We always appreciate the context you add with a career in transmitting informing you!
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Bob Colegrove, who writes:
Hi Thomas,
I came across this article on Wikipedia. It is a few days late, but thought it might be of interest to others. The link is
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Regional_Broadcasting_Agreement.
Briefly, this past Monday, was the 80th anniversary of the implementation of the “Havana Treaty,” which was actually signed on December 13, 1937, and finally implemented 80 years ago on March 29, 1941. It provided for reorganization of the “AM” medium wave band into frequency allocations for clear channel, regional and local stations.
AM radio was the Internet of its day. The invention of the telegraph notwithstanding, radio provided widespread, instant communication, albeit one way, to a vast population reaching hundreds of miles from the transmission source. It extended to the most rural parts of the country adding “A battery” and “B battery” to the lexicon.
The initial licensing process had been done with very little planning and forethought using 96 channels between 550 and 1500 kHz. The reorganization was the culmination of the need for some order to reduce mutual station interference and provide more reliable service to listeners. It involved frequency changes for about 1000 stations in several countries. March 29, 1941 was informally known as “moving day.”
The Wikipedia article details the changes made at that time and goes on to describe subsequent expansions of the AM broadcast band.
Fascinating! Thank you for sharing this bit of radio history with us, Bob!